Author: nick

[ad_1] Jeffrey Wernick Buried in the Senate’s version of the defense authorization bill is a provision that changes the relationship between the American state and private industry. Section 1051 would give the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital explicit authority to buy ownership stakes in private companies, and it would create a new account in the Treasury to pay for them. The government would no longer merely fund, contract with, and regulate private firms. It would own them. The text is written to sound contained. The equity power is limited to critical minerals, materials, chemicals, and batteries. Stakes are capped at…

[ad_1] Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair “The United States and Iran exchanged fire for a second consecutive night on Thursday [July 9],” the New York Times reports, “extending a pattern of hostilities that has all but collapsed their fragile truce and left the Middle East suspended between war and peace.” Let’s be honest here: There was no real “truce,” “fragile” or otherwise. Sure, there was a bit of a lull for further negotiations after US president Donald Trump signed the instrument of US surrender (“Memorandum of Understanding”), but we’ve seen continuous minor flare-ups ever since and it was clear before the…

[ad_1] Jackie Barlow and Stewart Mitchell “We’re used to people saying ‘fuck no’ and doing it anyway.” These words were seemingly spoken by our very own Governor Gretchen Whitmer earlier this month, caught on a hot mic chatting with Oracle executive Clay Magouryk. The two were celebrating breaking ground on the controversial new AI data center in rural Saline, Michigan — currently the largest data center project in the country. Governor Whitmer is apparently happy to sell Michigan out to military tech giants OpenAI and Oracle. This is the latest in a series of data center projects being forced…

[ad_1] The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is intensifying. With over 1,400 cases and 438 deaths tainting the morale of health workers, there is a small piece of good news. A treatment trial has begun. The DR Congo has officially started a trial of potential treatments for the species of virus behind the current deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The strain, called Budibugyo, has been difficult to treat since it is not the more common Zaire strain. The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the first patient in the trial has been…

[ad_1] Over a decade ago, Sen. John Fetterman (D–Pa.) looked like the future of Bernie Sanders–style populism, championing higher minimum wages, criminal justice reform, and social welfare spending. After 13 years as mayor of deeply impoverished Braddock, Pennsylvania, and then a term as the state’s lieutenant governor, he won his Senate seat in 2022. Since coming to Washington, Fetterman has charted a unique path. He routinely criticizes his own party for “catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base,” accuses fellow Democrats of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and praises capitalism as the one system that has consistently improved living standards.…

[ad_1] Cover art for the book From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures by Lara Sheehi Psyops are part and parcel of warfare, especially in modern times. Familiarly called winning hearts and minds during Washington’s war on the Vietnamese, one can argue that the incorporation of modern psychology into what might be termed propaganda exercises enhanced those “exercises”. Whether or not bringing psychological insights into the combat for the hearts and minds of non-combatants made war propaganda more effective is up for debate. However, its use in convincing the people back home—the ones paying for the war…

[ad_1] The following recent archival discovery may be of interest to CounterPunch readers one week after the nation’s 250th anniversary. Dear Thomas Jefferson: We hope that you and your slaves are enjoying your summer in Monticello. We certainly appreciate the hard work and elaborate word-crafting that has gone into your submission on national independence, but regret that we cannot publish it for the following reasons: 1. The fact that you and other signers of your declaration are slaveowners renders crassly hypocritical your eloquent statement that “All men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are…

[ad_1] Photo by Akanda Kilicarslan Temperatures have soared globally this summer. And far from simply being uncomfortable, it’s killing people. This past July 4th was one of the hottest in U.S. history. While Americans gathered to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, dozens died from extreme heat — and the toll may still rise. In Europe, which has seen its own devastating heat wave, some 3,700 people have died. And the heat has become so extreme in Pakistan that people’s teeth are literally dissolving in their mouths.  This is only the beginning of extreme heat this summer — and if we don’t stop the climate crisis,…

[ad_1] Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Let me make one thing clear at the outset. I do not hate Americans who identify as white people. To do so would in part be a form of self-hate and socially backwards. I am not a self-hater, preferring to look at social dynamics rooted in economics and politics. On that note, I do think that self-hate is connected with white supremacy, the practice and theory of human inferiority and superiority based on the policies and politics linked to one’s skin color. There’s a lot to unpack here, without question. Political dissatisfaction and economic dislocation created the…

[ad_1] The timing made the debate especially striking. As leaders met to discuss pouring hundreds of billions more into weapons and armies, Europe was enduring one of the most severe heat waves in its recorded history, with deadly temperatures, wildfires, strained electricity grids, and mounting pressure on public health systems. The contrast raised an unavoidable question: at a time when climate change is already killing people and overwhelming governments, why is the overriding political priority dramatically expanding military budgets instead of investing in the threats people are facing today? 2. NATO Countries Reluctant to Support Trump on Iran Trump signing…